Open AccessPartial Volume Effect and Correction for 3-D Color Flow Acquisition of Volumetric Blood Flow
Author(s) -
Oliver D. Kripfgans,
Jonathan M. Rubin,
Š. Pintér,
James Jago,
Ron Leichner,
J. Brian Fowlkes
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
ieee transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics and frequency control/ieee transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.159
H-Index - 136
eISSN - 1525-8955
pISSN - 0885-3010
DOI - 10.1109/tuffc.2019.2934119
Subject(s) - voxel , laminar flow , flow (mathematics) , blood flow , filter (signal processing) , partial volume , materials science , physics , optics , biomedical engineering , nuclear medicine , mechanics , computer science , computer vision , engineering , medicine
Blood volume flow (VF) estimation is becoming an integral part of quantitative medical imaging. Three-dimensional color flow can be used to measure volumetric flow, but partial volume correction (PVC) is essential due to finite beamwidths and lumen diameters. Color flow power was previously assumed to be directly proportional to the perfused fractional color flow beam area (voxel). We investigate the relationship between color flow power and fractionally perfused voxels. We simulate 3-D color flow imaging using Field II based on a 3.75-MHz mechanically swept linear array. A 16-mm-diameter tube with laminar flow was embedded into soft tissue. We investigated two study scenarios where soft tissue backscatter is 1) 40 dB higher and 2) 40 dB lower, relative to blood. Velocity and power were computed from color flow packets ( n = 16 ) using autocorrelation. Study 1 employed a convolution-based wall filter. Study 2 did not employ a wall filter. VF was computed from the resulting color flow data, as published previously. Partial volume voxels in Study 1 show lesser power than those in Study 2, likely due to wall filter effects. An "S"-shaped relationship was found between color flow power and fractionally perfused voxel area in Study 2, which could be due to an asymmetric lateral-elevational point spread function. Flow computation is biased low by 7.3% and 7.9% in Study 1 and Study 2, respectively. Uncorrected simulation estimates are biased high by 41.5% and 12.5% in Study 1 and Study 2, respectively. Our findings show that PVC improves 3-D VF estimation and that wall filter processing alters the proportionality between color flow power and fractionally perfused voxel area.